Lodi winegrape growers show how it's done

Tuesday

Feb 24, 2009 at 12:01 AM

LODI - Two dozen farm and environmental regulators from around the world and the United States stopped by LangeTwins Winery & Vineyards on Monday for lunch and to learn how Lodi winegrape growers are leading the charge on sustainable farming.

Reed Fujii

LODI - Two dozen farm and environmental regulators from around the world and the United States stopped by LangeTwins Winery & Vineyards on Monday for lunch and to learn how Lodi winegrape growers are leading the charge on sustainable farming.

While no formal rules define sustainable farming, the system developed by the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission offers three broad goals: economic viability, environmental protection and social equity - being fair to the farmer, his family, employees and the greater community.

"Sustainability is truly all-encompassing," said Clifford Ohmart, the commission's research director.

And because the grower-supported group has plowed great effort and millions of dollars into its program since being founded in 1991, Ohmart said he now is in wide demand, called to talk about sustainability in Missouri, Iowa and Michigan among other states and other countries.

The Lodi program has been adopted statewide and by grower groups in other states as well.

"Sustainable farming is about as hot a topic as you can get in U.S. agriculture right now," he said.

Apparently, it's also a hot topic in other parts of the world.

The foreign visitors participate in the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which provides its 30 member governments a forum where they can compare and coordinate policies, discuss common problems and share solutions.

Wolfgang Zornbach, chairman of the OECD steering group on reducing pesticide risks and from Germany's Federal Ministry of Food Agriculture and Consumer Protection, said Monday's tour was part of a weeklong visit to the United States. The day's events also included a presentation by aerial applicator Bob's Flying Service in Knights Landing and demonstration of so-called smart sprayer technology at a Travaille & Phippen almond orchard in Manteca.

"In the field, we like to see what the farmers are doing here," Zornbach said.

He noted that European farmers face a 2014 deadline to adopt integrated pest management practices, which is just one approach in sustainable farming.

"It's very valuable to hear ideas on the same thoughts here and in other countries," he said.

In hosting the group, which included officials from Australia, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands and New Zealand, LangeTwins co-owner Randall Lange said he believes in long-term "generational thinking."

That's why he supports the winegrape commission and its sustainable farming program, which prompted Lange and his family to invest more than $12 million in building a large, new winery in 2005.

A longtime contract winegrape grower selling all its grapes to wineries, Lange-Twins had been at the mercy of the weather and commodity markets. As a fourth-generation California farmer, Lange is seeing a fifth generation get into the family business and said he hopes to see that continue for a sixth generation and beyond:

"We had to put a face on our product and put a face on our label and put that out to people and say, 'This is who we are.' "